Jordan's Journey

This property was called Beggar's Bush when Samuel Jordan got the 450 acre tract. There are no beggars there now. :-) The area is very high dollar. He built his house where the land juts out in the water. He called it Jordan's Journey.

The Dockside restaurant, Jordan's Point Country Club and a new subdivision are on the old home site. Right by the side of the road at the subdivision is a state marker declaring this peninsula to be Jordan's Journey with all the details of Samuel Jordan arriving there in 1610 and escaping the Powhatan massacre.

Here are three different pictures of the road marker for Samuel Jordan at Jordan's Journey in Prince George County Virginia. the first one is as seen heading away from the James River, and the other two are the view heading towards the River. The sign is the same on both sides. These are just several of pictures of it.

Roadside Marker with Jordan on the James Entrance
The other side of the marker heading towards the James River
Closeup of Sign as seen heading towards the James River

There is a wonderful restaurant about half a mile away from this sign as you go from the river towards Hopewell called the Dockside restaurant. At the very end of the menu they have a map on their site that will give you directions from your house to what used to be Samuel and Cicely's property. [See directions below] The restaurant is built on Jordans Point Road right next to the Country Club. I highly recommend that if you go to this area, you take the time to have a meal and sit on their patio and admire the lands of Cicely and Samuel Jordan. Not only do they have wonderful food, but there you will a have a beautiful view of the river. It is a nice seafood restaurant with a great view of the water on 3 sides. The other side of the river is in Charles City County, and it is all lit up at night by the houses.

If you click on the words Dockside Restaurant and go to the very end of the menu, there is a map site. Click on the gray box DriveIt! at the bottom of it. When you click on that you go to a MSN Map Blast. Right below that Map Blast box, click on the line Get Driving Directions> and it will take you to a screen with a box for your address and a box for their address, which is on the bar at the left side of the page - 700 Jordan's Point Road, Hopewell, VA 23860. Click on the gray box Get Directions and it will show you the map from your house to the Jordan property. It will give you the distance, the estimated time for the journey and from step by step instructions for each leg of the trip. You might want to play around with that map after you get to your destination just to get the lay of the land. If you click on the east side, you can see the land's relationship to Williamsburg and Jamestown. About 2 clicks south and 7 clicks east will get you to Isle of Wight. Go back and click on the red flag at Jordan's Point to center it, then zoom in a click to get a better view of the local land. Even though it has a Hopewell mailing address, it is not in the city of Hopewell, but in Prince George County.

In the days of the immigrant Samuel Jordan, most people got around by boat and they freely went from one side of the river to the other. Samuel Jordan's son, Robert, was killed in the Indian Massacre of 1622 at Berkley Hundred in Charles City trying to warn their neighbors across the water of the impending Indian attack.

The Berkleys were killed too in the Indian Massacre of 1622 and the property shortly came to be in possession of the Harrison family. Berkley Planatation in Charles City County is directly across the river from Jordan's Point. It was the home of Benjamin Harrison, signer of the Declaration of Independence. His third son and the 9th President William Henry Harrison was born there. President William Henry Harrison's grandson Benjamin Harrison was the 23rd President of the United States.

Where Samuel and Cicely's house actually was is where the base of the Benjamin Harrison Bridge is now that connects both sides of the river. This is the way it looks on the road to get to the bridge. This seems to be some kind of yacht club and/or boat repair that leads to the river. You can see the base of the bridge rising up in the background, the bottom part of it obscured by a building.

Benjamin Harrison Bridge
Another view of Bridge

The subdivision on the property is called Jordan on the James and it has about 50 homes. The houses in there are very nice, all fairly new. While most were average sized, some looked quite big. Most of them have a panoramic view of the water. We drove through the neighborhood one night just to see how many more had been built. One was lit up like a Xmas tree ...a lot of glass and 3 floors with a spiral staircase that went from the first to the third floor I think would have pleased Scarlet O'Hara.

Entrance to Jordan on the James
Typical yard and house
Another Jordan on the James House

I wonder how many of the families that live there are descendants of Samuel Jordan? I would hope that a few are, and know that they are.

George Jordan and family abt 1889

posted by Betty 12:06 AM

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